Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh/Hong Kong
—
On the floor of a small makeshift home in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, her mother, Fatima Begum, feeds Sophia by rubbing food paste made to treat severe malnutrition into her gums.
These lifesaving packets are provided by the U.S. government and are labeled with the USAID logo. USAID is the legacy of a now-defunct organization that was disbanded by the Trump administration in January. US aid has been cut by $8 billion a year, leaving a gaping hole in international aid.
The impact is already being felt in the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, where UNICEF reports an alarming 11% increase in the number of acutely malnourished children between January and September this year.
USAID’s remaining supplies are now depleted and regular food donations are decreasing, Begum said.
“We used to feed them more, but now we don’t,” Begum said. “They don’t give me fruit like they used to. They don’t give me fish like they used to. But I’m grateful for what they give me.”
Fatima Begum, a Rohingya Muslim, fled her home in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state in 2017 after the military carried out what U.S. and United Nations experts called a genocide. She is currently crammed with 1.2 million other Rohingya in a vast refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
Ms. Begum escaped from one type of hell, but ended up in another. Now they face a daily battle to keep the baby alive.
Sofiya currently receives 2.5 ready-to-use therapeutic food packs (RUTF) each day, each containing 500 calories from a mix of powdered milk, peanuts, vegetable oil and vitamins. Over the past few decades, this simple product has helped save millions of children from the brink of starvation.
As of July this year, UNICEF had to reduce the number of RUTF packets given per child in camps due to resource strain.
“Cox’s Bazar is ground zero for the impact of budget cuts on people in dire need,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said after visiting the camp in March, adding: “People will suffer and even die.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly denied that U.S. aid cuts have caused deaths, defending the measures as a way to cut bureaucracy and prioritize “national interests.”
But a study published in The Lancet predicts the cuts will result in 14 million deaths over the next five years, and an online impact tracking tool run by a Boston University professor estimates they are already killing 88 people per hour.
In a statement to CNN, a US State Department spokesperson said the US announced “an additional $60 million in lifesaving assistance to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh” in September, including emergency food assistance and RUTF packets.
“The Trump Administration has significantly strengthened the efficiency and strategic impact of our foreign assistance programs, continuing to provide lifesaving aid around the world, including to vulnerable populations like Rohingya refugees, while remaining accountable to U.S. taxpayers,” the spokesperson said.
Children are exhausted every day and there is no time to wait for funding gaps to be filled.
At the nutrition center at Camp 15 in Cox’s Bazar, run by Concern Worldwide under a program from UNICEF and the World Food Program (WFP), babies are measured for malnutrition by wrapping a paper tape measure around their tiny arms.
Chronic malnutrition, or stunting, remains high in the camps at around 41%, according to UNICEF.
“More and more children are suffering from the most severe forms of malnutrition, putting them at risk of death,” said Deepika Sharma, UNICEF’s director of nutrition and child development in Bangladesh.
With international aid withdrawing from the United States and other countries including the United Kingdom and France, aid agencies are cutting jobs around the world to protect front-line operations, including the loss of nearly 5,000 jobs at the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.
However, life-saving projects such as health services, food supplies and vaccination programs remain affected. The situation is expected to worsen next year, with many aid agencies facing a funding cliff in 2026.
“People are suffering,” said Shamsud D’Souza, joint secretary of the Additional Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission (RRRC) office in Cox’s Bazar. “Humanitarian aid is reduced, funding is reduced, and some people are losing their jobs, education programs, and everything else.”
In August, the Bangladeshi government held a large conference to raise funds for the Rohingya. Then, on September 30, the United Nations held a special conference on the situation in New York.
Refugees in the camp survive on $12 a month per person for food. The World Food Program said it has not implemented any rationing cuts so far this year but faces a $126 million funding shortfall over the next 12 months.
“The needs of the Rohingya in Bangladesh are outpacing resources at an alarming rate,” Julie Bishop, the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy for Myanmar, said in New York on September 30. “Without new contributions, food assistance to the entire Rohingya community will cease completely within two months.”
UNHCR says more than 150,000 new Rohingya refugees have arrived in camps in the past two years, straining stretched resources. They fled fierce fighting between the Myanmar military and the Rakhine Arakan National Army during the civil war. Both militaries have been involved in alleged atrocities against the Rohingya population.
Home aid has largely been cut off in northern Rakhine state, where the military has been accused of using hunger as a weapon of war, and many new arrivals are already severely malnourished.
Further south, in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, hundreds of Rohingya have lived in refugee camps since 2012 after violent attacks on their community in the past.
Hla Tin, a 39-year-old Rohingya living in Sittwe camp, told CNN that she has not received any aid in the camp since June, suggesting that conditions in the camp are even worse than in Cox’s Bazar. According to the United Nations, only 12% of humanitarian needs in Myanmar are funded.
Fratin has five children, but her two youngest children both suffer from malnutrition.
“Both the elderly and children are more susceptible to illness these days due to the lack of nutritious food,” Hla Tin said.
He said more than 300 of the 432 households in the camp do not have regular meals and people are in debt by taking out loans to buy food.
“I would like to appeal to the international community and international organizations to help us and not turn away from us,” he said.
Back in her bamboo and tarpaulin tent on a hillside in Cox’s Bazar, refugee Mariam Khatun dresses and prepares food for her three young children. These daily tasks are the only thing that keeps her going after the death of her eldest daughter Estafa.
Because she was a bright student, her family sent seven-year-old Estafa to private lessons to learn Arabic. The hope was that this would give her a chance to one day leave the camp and find a better future.
But this year, with budget cuts, things started to change.
“We can’t afford to educate our children. We have less access to medicine than before,” Katun said. “If we run out of budget in the future…we will suffer even more.”
According to aid agencies, 48 medical facilities and 11 primary health centers in the camp have been directly affected by U.S. government budget cuts.
“Currently, there are long queues at our hospitals and people waiting for treatment,” said Hasina Rahman, Bangladesh director of the International Rescue Committee (IRC). “Services have been, and continue to be, limited in our camps, and that is having a major impact.”
In February, Estafa suddenly became ill with abdominal pain and was taken to the camp’s hospital, where he was later transferred to a larger facility where he received treatment, Katun said.
“My child suffered and died in agony,” Khatun said through tears.
The cause of death was “aspiration pneumonia and encephalitis,” according to the death certificate seen by CNN.
The grieving mother blamed a lack of medical care for her child’s death, but the medical team treating her told CNN there was no link between her death and the funding cuts.
However, such tragedies also reflect the vulnerability of this refugee population, with reductions in overall support causing cascading effects on people whose survival is already at risk.
“This is basically a disaster in progress,” IRC’s Rahman added.
“We used to receive aid from the United States,” Mariam Khatun said. “We are asking for their help again.”
